The Art and Science of Cranky Office Notes

With the start of a new year, offices are buzzing with feel-good energy as workers resolve to get 2013 off to a good start.

That is, until they start annoying one another, and those testy little notes resurface around the workplace.

You find them in every office: anonymous passive-aggressive messages festooning the office fridge, kitchen sink or bathroom stall, accusing fellow workers of crimes against collegiality–such as purloining a can of Sprite, leaving dirty mugs in the office sink or neglecting to flush the toilet.

Some workers observe these messages with an almost anthropological interest, collected on sites like PassiveAggresiveNotes.com, which catalogs the many styles of notes, such as those written in ALL CAPS, as well as those that use profanity, exclamation marks and the occasional “smiley face” to get their points across. Sometimes, as in this note about a tub of margarine, the author incorporates several elements at the same time.

Other times, as with this poetic but rambling note about a missing salad, the author imagines the precise sequence of events leading up to the incident: “Somebody must have kindly moved them to the more appropriate produce crisper drawer in a kind attempt to prolong their shelf life,’ I thought to myself. But ‘twas not the case.”

(Of particular note is the subcategory of messages pertaining to stolen Hot Pockets and Lean Pockets, which seem to inspire not only countless acts of larceny but also particularly passionate notes, as shown by this compilation here.)

If you’re seeing these notes proliferate in your workplace, chances are something larger is going on. Linnda Durré, a Winter Park, Fla.-based psychotherapist and author of the 2010 book, “Surviving the Toxic Workplace,” says passive-aggression tends to spike when employees are unhappy. As companies struggle to rebound from the recession, she says, these cranky little notes may be especially common.

Such notes are the written equivalent of “smiling with gritted teeth,” Durré says. Often, the employee is already dissatisfied in general, and small things just “set them off,” she says. Left alone, these messages can slowly whittle away at company morale, Durré says. Repeated passive-aggressive notes may signal that an employee is seriously disgruntled, and it’s up to human resources to seek out the note’s author for a conversation before the problem develops into something more malicious. But unless a worker dispatches the note in a company-wide email, it’s often tricky for HR to pinpoint the note’s author, she adds.

A cranky missive tends to appear in the office and not, say, in the home, because workers often feel they can’t express their emotions openly with their colleagues, says Signe Whitson, author of “The Angry Smile: The Psychology of Passive Aggressive Behavior in Families, Schools, and Workplaces.”

Not everyone has the same propensity for passive-aggression, Whitson notes. Many people find other ways to deal with an annoyance, like ignoring the problem or dismissing it with humor. The passive-aggressive note-leaver has the unique, contradictory quality of being both assertive and afraid of confrontation.

“There’s very little that’s passive about the note, but for whatever reason, they know there will be consequences to expressing themselves, so they do it behind this veil,” she says.

Readers, tell us: What are some of the most- outrageous passive-aggressive notes you’ve seen in your workplace?

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Written and edited by The Wall Street Journal’s Management & Careers group, At Work covers life on the job, from getting ahead to managing staff to finding passion and purpose in the office. Tips, questions? email us.